Published 12:33 pm, Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Mother Nature may be playing a cruel joke on both the region and all of the continental United States.

Perhaps she is trying to lull use into complacency.

Regardless, this spring is starting out to be the least eventful Severe Weather Season the nation has seen in decades.

AccuWeather reported on Monday that due to the continuous onset of cold, drier air that’s been keeping southern moisture at by, the month of March has seen no severe thunderstorms issued by the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration’s Storm Prediction Center. That’s never happened before in the center’s 45-year history.

“We are in uncharted territory with respect to lack of severe weather,” SPC meteorologist Greg Carbin said in a recent press release. “This has never happened in the record of SPC watches dating back to 1970.”

From Jan. 1 through March 17, the center issued just four tornado watches and no severe thunderstorm watches. The typical number of tornado watches during that period is 52.

Since January, just 20 tornadoes of been reported, which is also well under the 10-year average of 130 for the same period. Should a tornado occur, it would be the first such storm of the month, not counting waterspouts. The last tornado in the United States was very weak and occurred on Feb. 23, in Kern County, California, according to AccuWeather.

AccuWeather warns that the current uneventful weather pattern can change quickly, and if the does National Weather Service statistics suggest that Hale County could be in the path of nature’s wrath.

According to a chart from the NWS in Lubbock on the number of observed tornadoes from 1950 to 2014, Hale County has been targeted 126 times, more than any other county on the South Plains. Three of those twisters have been rated as F3 or greater.

Lubbock County is second at 94 twisters, including three that were F3 or greater, and one F5 tornado. That storm, on May 11, 1970, produced $250 million damage, killed 26 people and injured 1,500.

Lamb County comes in third at 82, including seven F3 or greater storms.

Swisher County, at No. 4, has recorded 66 tornadoes during that period with five ranking F3 or greater.

Other area tornado totals include Castro, 57, one F3+; Floyd, 56, three F3+; and Briscoe, 44, three F3+.

According to the NWS, the largest tornado in the region was recorded May 31, 1968, near Edmonson. A multiple vortex tornado, it was estimated to be 2 miles wide. The longest traced tornado covered 130 miles, from northeast of Muleshoe to northeast of Pampa on April 17, 1970. A companion tornado that night, moving almost parallel, ripped through central Plainview and Seth Ward before moving northeastward toward Clarendon.

Three years later, April 15, 1973, another strong tornado ripped through the Westridge Addition as well as west Plainview. Two were killed by that storm and dozens injured.